Mayoral proclamation to honor Post 21 team's 80th anniversary

Mayor Domenic Sarno of Springfield will visit the Holyoke Soldiers' Home on Saturday to deliver a proclamation to one of its residents, 96-year-old Tony King.

King is the last living member of a 1934 American Legion Post 21 baseball team from Springfield that took a stand against racial segregation.

Post 21's 14 white players voted unanimously to withdraw from an eastern sectional tournament in Gastonia, N.C., when they learned that their one black teammate, Bunny Taliaferro, would not be allowed on the field.

Saturday, Aug. 23, marks the 80th anniversary of that withdrawal, which ranks as one of this country's earliest non-violent protests on behalf of civil rights.

Mayor Sarno's proclamation will honor that anniversary, and King's status as captain and second baseman of that team.

A ceremony will take place at the Soldiers' Home. Members of King's family will be present, along with Mike Borecki, chairman of Springfield's "Bring It Home" baseball committee. On June 15, Borecki's group honored the memory of the '34 team as a highlight of its Father's Day festivities in Forest Park.

Joan Rosenbaum, a Longmeadow native who grew up in Gastonia, also will be present for the proclamation. In 2010, when Post 21 returned to Legion baseball, she attended the team's first game and expressed her dismay and disappointment at her hometown's actions in the Taliaferro incident.

Richard Andersen, a Springfield College professor, published two books this year on the Post 21's Gastonia experience. He will be unable to attend Saturday's event because he is traveling abroad.

Andersen had a photograph of the Post 21 team enlarged and framed. Borecki will present it to King on Andersen's behalf.

"I think it's a very nice gesture by Mayor Sarno to issue a proclamation on behalf of our team's anniversary," King said of the proclamation. "I just wish all of my teammates could be here to be part of it."